Free Doctor in Love by Richard Gordon Page A

enough patients.”
    “Heaven forbid! That place?”
    “Look here,” I decided, seeing that I must be firm. “I’ll lay on a car tomorrow and have you run down to London to see Sir Robert Cufford. He knows more about disks than anyone else in the country. Won’t you agree to that? Especially as you knew him as a student.”
    “And a bumptious stubborn little blighter he was, too.”
    “And that’s just the type you want, to make you do as you’re told. He’ll take you into the Royal Neurological and investigate you. I insist on it. It’s doctor’s orders.”
    “But it’s impossible, Richard! Who’ll run the practice?”
    “I will.”
    “With the best will in the world, it’s too much for one pair of hands.”
    “Then I’ll get a locum.”
    “You won’t at this time of the year.”
    “I’ll try the newly qualified men at St Swithin’s.”
    “They’ll all have got jobs.”
    “I’ll write to an agency.”
    “You never know who they might send.”
    We were still considering this problem when the front doorbell rang.
    “Damn it!” I said, tired, irritated, and worried. “That’s bound to be some small child with a note saying please send more cotton-wool and some ear cleaners because father’s run out.”
    On the mat stood Grimsdyke.

9
    “Irish medicine’s quite unlike medicine anywhere else,” Grimsdyke reflected. “The chaps don’t actually use leprechaun poultices, but there’s a cheerful element of witchcraft about it.”
    We were in the saloon bar of the Hat and Feathers behind the Deanery the following evening. I no longer visited public houses myself, because a doctor in general practice spotted refreshing himself with half a pint of mild ale is stamped as an incurable drunkard for life. But Grimsdyke had less inhibitions than me about everything, and insisted that our reunion must be celebrated,
    Grimsdyke was now our locum tenens . That morning I had seen Dr Farquarson off to the Royal Neurological Hospital in London, where Sir Robert Cufford had arranged to take him into the private wing. He had disappeared protesting that he was really much better and warning me of the dangers of having Grimsdyke anywhere near the practice. But Grimsdyke himself, who suffered the chronic delusion that he was the apple of his uncle’s eye, seemed delighted to have arrived at such a critical moment.
    “You know,” he said warmly, “I may be flattering myself, but I think I can contribute a lot to the old uncle’s practice. On the business and social side, you know. Uncle’s a dear old stick, but terribly old-fashioned in his ways. I expect you’ve found that out? Anyway, until the old chap recovers his health and strength – which I sincerely hope won’t be long – you and I, Richard, are going to form one of the brightest partnerships in medicine since Stokes and Adams.”
    “Or Burke and Hare,” I suggested. “Tell me more about Ireland. How did you find Dublin?”
    “Just like Cheltenham, except the pillar boxes are painted green. But full of the most amiable coves drinking whisky and water and talking their heads off about nothing very much and telling you how beastly the British were to their aunt’s grandmother.”
    “But come, now, Grim! Surely that’s a stage Irishman?”
    “My dear fellow,” he said authoritatively, “ All Irishmen are stage Irishmen.”
    “But what about Irish doctors? After all, they’re one of the most popular exports, next to racehorses. How did you find your professional colleagues down in the country?”
    “Ah, my professional colleagues! Outside Dublin things were a bit quainter. I hired a car and went down to Enniscorthy in County Wexford, and put up at Bennett’s Hotel while I searched round for my practice. I finally ran him to earth in a pub in that village on the postcard.”
    “Doctor O’Dooley, you mean?”
    “No, the practice. There was only one patient. He was an old chum called Major McGuinness, though what the devil he’d ever